Mark Dion

I’m interested in the way Dion uses collection as artwork and his construction of imagined scientific spaces. This is definitely something to consider as I build my archaeologist’s research and documentation, perhaps their workspace too as a way to present my work for assessment.

I don’t think I want the archaeologist to be a known character as such; someone with a name, body and personality, but more of an anonymous gatherer of material and knowledge – certainly not someone remembered in history. Instead, I want to focus on their finds and theories – using their suppositions about the artefacts they find to reveal cultural information about their own time. To do this I can use their artefact drawings, reconstructions, notes, restoration of objects etc. combined with film and audio work.

Left: The Great Munich Bug Hunt, 1983 https://art21.org/read/mark-dion-science-and-aesthetics/

Middle: Department of Marine Animal Identification of the City of San Francisco (Chinatown Division), 1998/2010 http://www.tanyabonakdargallery.com/artists/mark-dion/series-sculpture-and-installation/36

Right: The Cabinet of the Machines of Capital, 2012 https://universes.art/en/montevideo-biennia l/2012/photo-tour/16-mark-dion/

The Classical Mind in: Misadventures of a 21st Century Naturalist, 2017

“Something very familiar suddenly becomes kind of extraordinary when it gains the status of being a specimen” — I think this and the act of collection are what I find important about this video and work in relation to my idea. A bit like ready-mades, when you take something mundane and begin to examine it it takes on a new life and meaning. This came up when I did the performance, that questioning what marks we leave behind and how they’ll be interpreted enables us to step back and critically reflect on the world around us.